by Lori Foster
“What? Your other line? Sure, I can hold,” Charlotte said. She looked over at Gabe, covering the mouthpiece. “It’s Jack Landor. I’m holding.”
“Breathlessly,” Gabe growled. “You’re not thinking of going out with that character, are you?”
“Well, I hadn’t…” she started, then stopped, her eyes flashing. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“He could be an ax murderer for all you know!”
“He’s Jack Landor!” Charlotte exclaimed. “At this point, he’s getting so famous he’s lucky to go to the bathroom with privacy, much less kill anyone!”
“My point exactly!” Gabe yelled back, then stopped. No, that wasn’t his point at all. Normally, he had a lot more logic on his side, but his anger had seriously shorted out the better part of his brain. “All I’m saying is, you’re not thinking this through. He’s big-league, he’s famous…and you’ve got that damned bet on your brain. Why would you want to go out with some celebrity freak show otherwise? Think about it!”
Her eyes narrowed, like shards of hazel ice. “Or, more to the point, why would he want to go out with me?”
Gabe grimaced. “Don’t go there, Charlotte. I swear.”
“Jack? Hi.” Her voice rang with an edge of steel. “I’d love to go out to dinner with you tonight. I think we should try Blue Moon, over on Manhattan Beach Boulevard. It’s sort of nouveau Italian, and the food is terrific. How does seven sound?” She paused for a moment, listening. “Perfect. Well, yes, you do know where I live. We can just walk there, it’s very close. Sure. I’ll see you then.” She placed the phone gently in its cradle, then stared at it. “I have a date with Jack Landor. Tonight.”
“How did he get your work number?” Gabe asked pugnaciously. “Answer me that, why don’t you!”
“Gabe, I don’t have to answer you one little thing.” She pointed to the door. “What’s more, I think this conversation has gone about as far as it can go. Get out, Gabe.”
“We’re not finished,” he warned.
“We will be if you keep it up. Out!”
“Fine!” He couldn’t resist slamming the door, an action that caused several heads to pop up like gophers over the low cubicle walls in the main room. He scowled at them. They disappeared rapidly.
So she was going out with Jack Landor tonight, huh? Thought she could “take care of herself.” Well, he’d just see about that. In fact, if she was so hell-bent on proving what a Guide girl she was, he’d show her exactly how insane those women could be.
Tonight, he planned on showing her that nobody knew more about dating—or winning—than Gabe Donofrio.
HOURS LATER, CHARLOTTE was still raw from her exchange with Gabe. Imagine him stomping in here like a caveman and claiming that she couldn’t take care of herself. And the ridiculous accusation that she wouldn’t be safe with Jack. If that was the best he could do to win that stupid bet, she’d win by default!
She threw her design stuff in her catchall basket, too stressed to indulge in her usual calming ritual of organization. Now, thanks to his meddling, his pressuring and his big mouth, she was going on a date in two hours.
Suddenly, the thought hit home.
Date.
She was going on a date.
In two hours.
With the most eligible man in America.
Oh, no. What had she just agreed to?
She walked out, dazed, not surprised to see that most of the other designers had taken an early Thursday to enjoy the Indian summer weather. A lot of them had been working weekends to land the Kensington account and deserved a little break before the next big project. A project she’d still be working on if she hadn’t agreed to this dinner date with Adonis, she thought, getting more anxious. Maybe she should cancel. He’d understand if it was for work, wouldn’t he?
Or maybe she could call him and tell him she was sick. He’d have to understand that. In fact, she felt like throwing up right now.
Wanda was just shutting down the switchboard for the night when Charlotte walked through the lobby. Wanda surveyed Charlotte, her lips bowing into a tiny, pointed smile. “That friend of yours went tearing out of here this afternoon like he wanted to kill somebody. What happened?”
Charlotte sighed. Wanda was the biggest busybody in the building. She also went through men the way kids go through Pez candies. “He doesn’t approve of my taste in dates,” she muttered darkly.
“You’ve got a date?” Wanda’s ultramarine eyes rounded. This was probably the juiciest gossip the woman would get all week. “Well, that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“The changes.” Wanda’s well-manicured ruby nails gestured to Charlotte’s dress. “The get-up. You know.”
“Maybe I just wanted a change,” Charlotte protested.
Wanda gave her a pitying look. “Come on, now. It’s just us girls here.” The two walked out of the building, Wanda punching in the alarm code as they left. “Nobody goes through all that trouble unless there’s a manhunt involved. It’s not like you’d look like that normally.”
“Is there something wrong with the way I look?” Charlotte said, half-defensive, half-worried. She gave herself a surreptitious glance in the reflection of the glass doors. Dana and the woman at the store had said that the dress was flattering, but she herself hadn’t been that crazy about it. Pastels weren’t her thing. Darn it, she just wasn’t sure about this stuff!
“Oh, no, of course not. It’s sort of…well, it’s very different,” Wanda said graciously. “And I’ve often said that you needed a change. I just wasn’t expecting one quite so radical.”
“Radical?” Charlotte didn’t think it was that big a deal. Okay, maybe she did, but she wasn’t expecting everyone she knew to think it was that big a deal.
“But maybe radical is just what you need,” Wanda continued. Her skyscraper heels clacked on the asphalt as they walked to their respective cars.
If I walked that way, I’d dislocate one of my hips. Charlotte shook off the thought. “What do you mean?”
“From the extreme change, I’d say you must be on a husband-hunt. And that calls for the heavy artillery.” Wanda smirked as she strutted over to her red convertible. “Desperate times call for desperate measures, right?”
Charlotte stopped by Jellybean, the nickname she’d given her roly-poly purple VW Bug. Unlocking the door, she murmured, “Been there already, huh?” She glanced skeptically over Wanda’s chartreuse linen suit, with its micromini hemline.
Wanda laughed, not insulted in the slightest. “Not on your life. I need a few more years of fun before I settle down. But if you need any help with hints, you just ask your girlfriend Wanda. You’re taking a step in the right direction with the makeover, but when you’re really ready to step up to the major leagues, you just let me know and I’ll see what I can do to help, okay? Good night!”
“Good night,” Charlotte replied weakly. She watched Wanda zoom out of the parking lot, her red hair floating behind her. She looked like some ad in a fashion magazine.
Charlotte didn’t realize she was still gripping the door handle with a choke hold until long moments later. She opened the door and sat down, then took a quick glance in her mirror. While Wanda’s face had still looked porcelain-doll perfect, she herself had lost her lipstick and she had a smudge of pastel high on her right cheek. Where Wanda’s red tresses were carefully coifed, her own unruly brown waves were pulled haphazardly in a scrunchy white elastic band, to stay out of her way while she worked. She tugged the band off, watching the locks bounce in front of her eyes. With a deep sigh, she started the car.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
If she canceled on Jack, she would just be prolonging the agony. She needed to stop these makeover attempts, once and for all. Just one month, she reminded herself. Just one lousy dinner date. She could do this. She had to do this.
Well, at least she wasn’t going to be under too much pressure. After all, she’d known going in that she w
ould lose the bet, she tried to comfort herself.
Then she decided not to comfort herself. It hurt too much.
4
CHARLOTTE WAS FRANTICALLY dashing around her bedroom when the phone rang.
“Hello?” She tugged her panty hose up to her waist with one hand, tucking the cordless phone between her head and her shoulder with the other.
“So is it true?” Dana asked with no preamble. “You’re going on a date with Jack Landor?”
“Bad news travels fast,” Charlotte groaned, wondering if Gabe had sent out a press release on it or something. She stalked to her closet. “Yes, it’s true. I’m getting dressed, oof—” she juggled the phone, buttoning her silk blouse “—as we speak.”
“What are you wearing?” Dana’s voice held the sharp tone of an interrogator.
“White silk blouse, pinstriped charcoal trousers, low heels, black blazer.”
“Are you going on a date or an interview?”
“You’re already on my list for putting me in pastels,” Charlotte warned, tugging on her pants. “Don’t start with me today, Dana. I mean it. I’m on my last nerve.”
“Why don’t you wear one of your new dresses?” Dana continued, ignoring Charlotte’s annoyance.
“Well, A, I wore one of them to work today, B, it’s going to be chilly tonight, and C, I don’t want to wear anything that screams ‘Take me, I’m yours!’ to Jack Landor, who probably has more scantily clad groupies than the Rolling Stones.”
Dana sighed in frustration on the other end of the line. “If he does have groupies, it’s for a darned good reason, Charlotte. The man gives Brad Pitt a run for his money.”
“Did you have something constructive to tell me, or are you just trying to give me an ulcer?” Charlotte yanked on her blazer impatiently. “Because if you don’t have any helpful information to share with me, I’m going to hang up and attempt to drown myself in the bathroom sink.”
“Relax, honey. Breathe,” Dana said soothingly. “In through the nose, out through the mouth.”
“Easy for you to say,” Charlotte replied, trying to take a deep breath. “You’re not having dinner with the most eligible man in America.”
“Well, you must be pretty attracted to him,” Dana pointed out. “You said yes to the man, didn’t you?”
“Well, yes. But I’m not sure that I would have if Gabe hadn’t been hassling me about him.” Charlotte frowned, then gave her makeup a quick glance in her bedroom mirror. The face there frowned back at her. She’d reapplied her cosmetics carefully, just like the lady at the spa had instructed. It probably worked…it was like looking at the face of a stranger, and it made her uncomfortable. “I feel like an idiot, Dana. My palms are sweating, and my heart’s beating like a jackhammer.”
“Sounds like love,” Dana suggested in a singsong tone.
“Sounds like terror,” Charlotte retorted in the same tone. The next time she saw Gabe, she’d strangle him. She wasn’t sure how she could prove it, but she was positive this was all his fault!
The doorbell rang, and she jumped, tripping on a pair of sneakers she’d left lying on the floor. “Oh, no. It’s him.”
“Remember to take a condom,” Dana advised.
Charlotte sighed. “I was thinking more of a cyanide capsule. Good night, Dana.” She hung up the phone before Dana could offer any more helpful hints.
Taking a deep breath, she went to the door and opened it slowly as she tried to hold on to her smile.
Jack was waiting, wearing a pair of black chinos and a dark green cable knit sweater that matched his eyes. He looked good, she thought, and her smile curved a little more naturally. “Hi, Jack.”
“Hi.” He smiled back. “I barely recognized you.”
“You’re telling me,” she said with feeling, grabbing a light jacket and her purse. “I barely recognize myself these days.”
When she turned back to face him, he was staring at her strangely. “Why?”
“Why, what?”
“The only time I’ve seen you, I didn’t get a good look at your face,” he explained, his smile broadening but his eyes still puzzled. “So it’s a surprise to me. But I’m sure you’ve seen your own face without oatmeal before.”
She blushed. Nothing like starting the evening off feeling stupid! “Oh, the oatmeal.” She laughed self-deprecatingly. “Well, the oatmeal is doing wonders. I’m a completely new person, which is why I have trouble recognizing myself.” Somehow that sounded lamer out loud than it did in her head.
“Really?” He gave her a complete once-over. “What did you look like before?”
She smirked at him, putting on her jacket. “I used to be a six-foot-tall Scandinavian, for one thing.”
He laughed, and she grinned back weakly. How long was it going to take him, she wondered, to realize he was going out to dinner with someone completely inept at being a girl?
Oh God, let me survive tonight.
Half an hour later, she was still surviving. Barely. She had managed to order without embarrassing herself, and there had only been three uncomfortable pauses. However, she had already managed to knock over her water twice, and had come perilously close to setting her menu on fire with the romantic tea-light candle in the center of the table.
“Sorry,” she said, trying to smile. His eyes were kind, but she felt sure it was a sort of “taking pity on the handicapped” smile. “I’m not usually this clumsy.”
“At the risk of sounding immodest, I’ve been around people who get nervous around me.” He shrugged. “You get used to it.”
She frowned. “Well, you are gorgeous. I guess I figured other people must get pretty blasé about that after a while.”
They both blinked at what she said, and she stammered, almost knocking over her third glass of water that night.
“I’m sorry…that wasn’t…oh, God. That sounded really stupid, didn’t it?”
“Actually, that was really cute.” He laughed. “I meant that people usually get nervous about the money thing. Of course, there is that stupid ‘Eligible Bachelor’ thing….”
“I remember reading about that,” Charlotte said. She also remembered Wanda pinning a picture of him at her desk for about two months.
“Ever since that went into print, I’ve had women literally tongue-tied when I wind up going to dinner with them. Or else chatting their heads off trying to convince me they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread.”
“Ick.” Charlotte rolled her eyes, laughing. “No problems here. I am definitely not the greatest thing since sliced bread.”
“I don’t know,” he said, a hint of laughter in his voice. “It’s really easy to talk to you, and you’re disarmingly honest, Charlotte.” His eyes glinted with mischief. “Or is it Angel? I heard that guy—what was his name?—call you that.”
“Oh,” she said, feeling a blush heat her cheeks yet again. “That. My friend Gabe. He just calls me that nickname because he knows it annoys me.”
“Why would being called ‘angel’ annoy you?”
She sighed. Well, it had been a sort of comedy of errors all night. She was just about getting the hang of being permanently embarrassed, so why not? “It’s stupid, really. When I was little, my dad used to call me Charlie, and Gabe and I used to watch Charlie’s Angels all the time. Gabe’s sister even tried feathering my hair once, with that little flip…you know, like Farrah Fawcett. It was a disaster,” she said, laughing ruefully at the memory. “Gabe teased me mercilessly after that. I’m Charlie, the bad hair Angel.”
Jack’s smile was warm. “Well, you don’t qualify for bad hair, and you don’t really look like a Charlie. The angel part fits well enough, though.”
She smiled, flustered, uncertain of what to do next. It was just a simple compliment, but she wasn’t sure how to react. She fell silent, and he waited expectantly. She wished she had anything, absolutely anything, to talk about.
Then she saw him.
Gabe sauntered in with a sly smile. He didn�
��t look at her. He was instead riveted on his dining companion for the evening.
The woman was perhaps five-ten with platinum-blond hair and a huge chest that didn’t bob when she walked. It was easy to tell, too, in that painted-on dress she was almost wearing. Jeez, Charlotte thought, Gabe had better taste than this, didn’t he?
You haven’t seen him out with a woman in forever. How are you supposed to know what his taste is? And what do you care?
The woman was draped over Gabe like a shawl. Charlotte felt her blood pressure rise a little.
“Speak of the devil,” Jack said. “Isn’t that your friend?”
“It would appear to be,” she said tightly. “I don’t know the woman, though.”
“She doesn’t seem to be the sort of person one would forget,” Jack said with a little cough, looking at the woman skeptically.
Charlotte immediately graced Jack with a radiant smile.
Their dinner arrived as Gabe and the Walking Bust were seated at a table not far from them, behind Jack. Unfortunately, they were in Charlotte’s immediate line of vision. She focused on Jack’s face and tried not to let her eyes wander to the table where the woman was making playful, teasing gestures with those French-manicured nails of hers. Gabe just smiled as the woman pawed him.
“Something wrong?” Jack asked, frowning with concern.
“Hmm? Oh. Nothing,” Charlotte muttered, looking down at her plate. So Gabe was into women who proved there was better living through plastic enhancement. So what? It was a free country.
Gabe leaned forward to catch what his date was saying after they ordered, and Charlotte watched as the woman took an obvious nibble at his ear. Then Gabe looked directly at Charlotte and gave her a slow, deliberate wink.
Charlotte’s breath caught in her throat as something clicked in her mind.
That bum!
It was a setup. She might have guessed! He was showing her the type of woman The Guide worked for…the moves, the looks, the surreptitious nibbles. He was rubbing Charlotte’s face in the fact that there was no way she could handle this date with Jack. She was outclassed, outmaneuvered and hopelessly out of her league.
She turned to Jack, her heart racing with anger. If Gabe hadn’t pushed her into this date, she wouldn’t be in this jam in the first place. She’d be damned if he would push her out of the same date by making her feel inadequate, by showing up with some hourglass Kewpie doll!